Unexplainable Pc Lockups during games - please post!

[chemicalplay]

Athlon Xp 1800+
Gigabyte K7 Triton
20gb Seagate HDD
384mb DDR Ram Pc2100
PNY Nvidia GeForce MX 440 64mb DDR
Creative Sound Blaster 4.1
Direct X 9.0

I have a newly formatted HDD with windows xp Pro, i install a game, play for 10mins and the whole pc locks, i have to reset.
This happens with nearly every game i own.
This is very frustrating and has caused me to reformat many times to try and solve the problem.
Also, many games will not run full screen as the minimize automatically and makes them unplayable.
What is going on!!!

HELP! Post for more information.

 

[Mavrick007]

Are you overclocking anything at all? Ie. Cpu, video card, etc?

How many sticks of ram do you have to make the 384megs? 2? 3?

You should try a memory tester program such as Memtest86 and see if you have any errors with your memory.
Let it loop for a few passes and see if there's any problems.

It might be your video card as well, perhaps it's overheating during intense play?
Check the heatsink? Is it really hot? Does it have a fan? Maybe try pointing an 80mm case fan towards the heatsink to cool it and the memory off.

 

[tenoc]

Mobo drivers installed before periferal drivers?

Onboard sound (if any) disabled in bios?

Try without SB card installed, they can cause problems.